SUM Hospital Fire: Woman Dies After Not Being Allowed Into ICU

Rajani was diagnosed with a tumour in her brain, and 13 more people were in the ICU when the fire broke out.

When the first spark was seen near the dialysis ward of the SUM Hospital, Amol Patra, 22, was waiting outside the ICU of the hospital. His mother Rajani, diagnosed with a tumour in her brain, and 13 others were in the ICU.

I heard a shriek. I knew something was wrong, I wanted to go to the ICU to see my mother. The guards prevented us from going in, so we pleaded that they call the doctors. But then smoke filled the corridor and started spreading in the ICU. My brother and I told the guard to let us in. No one listened.

Amol told The Indian Express

Also Read: SUM Hospital Fire: 2 FIRs Registered, 4 Staff Arrested as 20 Die

After two hours, Rajani was brought out of the ICU through a window that had to be smashed open. She was declared dead when she was taken to a nearby hospital.

“Did I bring my mother to the hospital to see her die like this?” Amol’s brother, Santosh Patra, said.

Rajani was moved to SUM Hospital from Kanheipur district in Khurda district.

Another patient, P Kalyani Patro, died of asphyxia in the ICU. She was admitted to the SUM Hospital on 13 October and was to be moved out on Tuesday.

“The staff did not allow us to enter the ICU and bring her out, though I kept pleading,” her son-in-law Arjun Patro told The Indian Express. “We were driven out after thick smoke emanated from the dialysis ward.”

Lingaraj Chhotray, an ITI student, who was admitted in the plastic surgery ward of the hospital on the third floor, said he had given up hope of emerging alive. His right foot had to be amputated after he fell from a train on his way home.

“The nurses and security men were running helter-skelter. We were told to fend for ourselves. My sister and a cousin of my brother-in-law somehow put me on a wheelchair and took me down the ramp. More than the smoke, I was worried about something else: what if the wheelchair trips and I fall,” Chhotray said.

Chhotray is now getting treated in AIIMS Bhubaneswar.

Daily wager Saibani Behera, whose son Ajit was diagnosed with leukaemia, carried him and dragged an elderly man to safety from the oncology ward.

“The guards said there is nothing to worry. But as smoke started entering the corridor, they fled. All along, I was wondering how to take my son to safety. On the next bed was a 60-year-old man. I grabbed my son and somehow dragged the old man through the corridor,” Behera told The Indian Express.

(Source: The Indian Express)